History
The holiday was first observed in 1921 as "Americanization Day," and was intended to counterbalance the celebration of Labour Day on May Day (May 1), an internationally celebrated holiday for the commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886.
Loyalty Day is celebrated with parades and ceremonies in several U.S. communities, like Batavia, Illinois, although many people in the United States remain unaware of it. Although a legal holiday, it is not a federal holiday, and is not commonly observed.
It was made an official holiday by the U.S. Congress on July 18, 1958 (Public Law 85-529). Following the passage of this law, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1, 1959 the first official observance of Loyalty Day.
With the exception of Eisenhower in 1959 and 1960, Loyalty day has been recognized with an official proclamation every year by every president since its inception as a legal holiday in 1958.
Read more about this topic: Loyalty Day
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis won’t do. It’s an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erected on its ruins, which will remain for ever one of the saddest and strangest of all landmarks in the history of twentieth-century thought.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)